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A key witness whose expense accounts are helping the prosecution build a corruption case against 15 school officials and contractors in South County has fudged his forms and suffers from other credibility issues, defense attorneys claim.

The defendants face more than 200 charges, including multiple felony counts of bribery and extortion. Prosecutors say officials took meals, sporting events and other considerations in exchange for multimillion dollar contracts.

Henry Amigable, a contractor who pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor charge and is cooperating with prosecutors, claims that he picked up the tab at dozens of meals with officials, which he says are backed up by expense forms filed with his employer.

Among the charges that the accused officials face is that they perjured themselves by not not reporting these meals on mandated financial disclosure forms.

In a letter to the District Attorney’s office, Kevin McDermott, attorney for former Southwestern College official John Wilson, says that Amigable submitted expenses for several meals listing Wilson on occasions when Wilson was not present.

“We are aware of at least three instances in which Mr. Amigable identified my client as a beneficiary of meals yet my client can document that he could not possibly have been present,” McDermott wrote.

Amigable, during his testimony before the grand jury, acknowledged that he could have listed people as present at meals if they were expected to attend, or if they were discussed there.

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“It was a long time ago,” Amigable testified. “There is a lot of food and a lot of wine that was being served at those dinners, so I may not remember every single person that was there.”

Transcripts of the testimony were made public this week over the objections of defendants, who have pleaded not guilty. McDermott cited three discrepancies he says he can prove with documentation:

• Amigable reported having dinner with Wilson and Southwestern College board member Yolanda Salcido on March 14, 2007, in San Diego. According to McDermott, however, Wilson was on the East Coast. Credit card receipts reflect he was at a hotel in Washington, D.C., on the day when the meal took place. Prosecutor Leon Schorr ultimately did not include the March meal in the evidence because of the discrepancy.

• On July 13, 2007, Amigable reported having dinner with Salcido and Wilson. Both Salcido and Wilson, McDermott said, were at a summer camp in Julian.

• Amigable reported having dinner with Wilson and Salcido on July 22, 2007, in Cardiff. Wilson was in Miami, McDermott said.

“While such meals and benefits may be of little moment in the overall scope of your investigation, Mr. Amigable’s false expense reports paint a picture of a prospective state’s witness who has little or no credibility,” McDermott said.

Defense attorney Marc Carlos, who represents Sweetwater school board member Pearl Quiñones, agreed with McDermott. He said that Quiñones was also not at several meals that Amigable claimed she attended.

“The reason he is cooperating is because he doesn’t want to go to jail,” Carlos said. “So anything he says can get augmented, or made to seem a lot worse than what it was, or even put people in places when they weren’t there.”

Carlos has been critical of the District Attorney’s use of the grand jury venue to bring the indictments against his clients because witnesses are not cross-examined by defense attorneys — a process that would have allowed review of Amigable’s credibility.

“Imagine if he takes the stand and there are seven different attorneys grilling him,” Carlos said. “He has a motive to lie.”

The District Attorney’s office declined to comment because the case is still active.

In his remarks to the grand jury, Schorr acknowledged that if a juror concluded that Amigable is lying on one report, a defense attorney could argue that his entire testimony is questionable. Schorr advised the jurors, however, to consider other avenues to verify the testimony, such as interviewing people who he claims were at the dinners to determine if they were there.

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David Steinberg, a law professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, said that defense attorneys could attack Amigable’s credibility at trial, but prosecutors could argue that Amigable’s lapses were due to how long ago the meals occurred.

“If it is a matter of having the wrong day six years ago, then I am not sure that it is going to be very powerful in terms of impeaching a witness,” Steinberg said. “If, however, he is saying that these people were there and there is clear evidence refuting that, that definitely goes to credibility and a defense attorney could seek to have his testimony impeached.”

Steinberg said that a prosecutor could attempt to lessen the impact of the misstatement by pointing out that making mistakes on expense reports is not uncommon.